The Press., 1887-07-07
THE pERILs OF LIFE.
DANGEROUS OCCUPATIONS KILL MORE MN
 THAN WAR,

DANGEROUS OCCUPATIONS KILL MORE M N
 THAN WAR.
 The great number of recent railroad dis asters ill New England, and the facts that have been made public by the discussion of the recently enacted employers liability law in Massachusetts, throw new light on the preponderence of women in this state, writes Boston correspondent to The Pitts burg Dispatch. An investigation of all the facts bearing on this social phenome- non reveals tragedy which may be told in statistics. Who are these surplus wom- en ? Unmarried women So it has been supposed, enormously.
 It has been assumed that they were the unmarried maidens and spinsters ''left"in the struggle for matrimonial prizes and therefore presumably not the" "fttest !" But investigation shows that they are neither young maidens nor spinsters, but they were not long ago the 'fttest," the hrightest of their sex who early won the love and support of brave young fellows, and are now widows. It takes very few figures to tell this fact in the tragedy. The total excess of females in the state 76, 6,373, and of this number 65,004, or more than 85 per cent, are widows, the total number of widowed men in the state being 32, 154 duQ Ok WluOWSu -WOu10u Jls 1OO. -.- t''
 2 It is not among women of advanced years, or even among those in middle life, that the great excess is found. More than half are not yet 40, and 29, ,004 are of ages between 20 and 30. They had but tasted of the happiness of wifehood and mother hood when they were made ''superiuous. !" A great number of these women are the widows of men whose dreadful deaths by 8 thousand forms of mutilation we read of ill our newspapers night and morning the young wage earners killed in the dan gerous occupation. s l. 2 ik.-.
 The perils of the fisheries are familiar tale. Since earliest colonial days the coast population has derived its support mainly from the sea, and if the down east minis tors salary is no longer paid iu cod and mackerel by weight or count, it is no less paid with cod and mackerel in another way. The fisherman sees but little of his home. His quest takes him 150 to 1000 or more miles from Gloucester. lie enters the little dory and casting off from the yes sel exposes himself to the full force of the Atlantic. With the best of luck his suf- ferings are severe, and 1t Is often that the worst of luck overtakes him. Lost in the fog, he dies in the agonies of starvation and thirst, and Last seen on the Georges ID bAO. OAly WOIu 1Alb S5Obso OdhCh lO bAAS uCS- olate home at Gloucester From 90 to 160 lives year are lost from vessels hailing from that single port of Gloucester. Last year the number was 115. ..s.....s,
 Not so concentrated ill one locality and occupation, but enormously greater in the aggregate, is the loss of life in the inland industries The network of railroads that covers the state is the greatest minotaur. The average number eff fatal accidents to railroad employees during the 10 years, 1876 to 1886, was A. per year. The average numkar of accidents not fatal1A 1Ass 1i99, 7aRd large proportion of these, it should be remembered, resulted ultimately in prema- ture death. The average number of per sons not employees killed while walking or lying on the track was 97.7 per year. An analysis of the latter number shows that the popular notion that track walkers are usually drunken men or tramps is as mis- taken as popular notions in general The majority of them are laborers going to and from work by the railroad track, because it is more direct than the highway. l. The fatalities among men who meet death while actually engaged in the duties of their calling make up a painful record. Here is one case from many in ny note- book. John Gaylord was freight brake
 
 warm hearted fellow, with plenty of good sense. Annie Day was a comedy, affec- tionate girl, whose father was an engineer on the same load. When John was pro- noted to regular post on the platform of passenger car of mixed train and told that, if he kept straight, he would be a baggage master i'll few monts, he said he would keep straight-and marry Annie. He kept his word in both particulars but the railroad officials did not keep theirs. John WAS still on the platform of his pas senger car when there were three little Gaylords in Annie's neat kitchen. One day John was ill especially good spirits as he started off and he looked back and way ed his dinner pail to Annie and the three little faces in the doorway. The'next day the train had covered two-thirds of the re- turn trip when the signal sounded for brakes. John sprang to his post. The brakeman on the freight car just forward saw the passenger car topple to one side, saw John straining at his brake, and turned away his eyes. The passengers crawled out, not one badly injured, and the train men looked about for John. They found him under the wreck, his hands clutching the broken brake-white, dead.
 | It was nearly tea time and nearly time for John when Annie heard the newsboys crying "Last edition, all about the acci. dent," a familiar cry that always filled her l with dreadful fear. In a moment she had the paper. In the blur of headlines that swam before her eyes she saw only the words: 'John Gaylord of this city killed" Annie is now one of the ''super- fluous women of Massachusetts,
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